When does 24 wins make a great NHL season?

The answer: when we’re talking about the 2009-2010 Montreal Canadiens.

Last season’s Habs team won only 24 games in regulation. 8 more wins came in overtime, with another 7 coming in shoot-outs. The 24 regulation wins represents a regulation winning percentage of 29%. Put differently, if you were watching a Montreal Canadiens regular season game, you had less than a 30% chance of seeing the Habs seal up the victory within 60 minutes.

Of the 88 points accumulated by the Canadiens in regular season last year, only 48 were earned in regulation. That’s only 55%. Close to 1 in 2 points earned by the 2009-2010 Canadiens were earned after the 60-minute siren sounded.

Even more interesting is the fact that the 29% regular season regulation winning percentage marks the lowest mark for any Montreal Canadiens team since the NHL introduced regular season overtime in the 1983-1984 season. Yes, that’s right: last year’s Montreal Canadiens team had a lower propensity of winning a game in regulation than the miserable 2000-2001 outfit.

Much like 1983-1984, the 2009-2010 season will be remembered for a gloriously unlikely playoff run. That playoff run certainly deodorized a regular season where regulation victories were painfully hard to come by.